Camera:
Emily Bissland

Silver Ball Screening Festival

The Silver Ball Screening Festival began as a
little idea discussed after films screened by f project cinema (fpc).

In 2012 seven people met to start a film group.
Now in its second year, fpc screens two films a month including documentaries
and feature films from Australia and abroad; we’ve even screened a silent film
with local musicians playing live.

With all this running smoothly, we thought we
could direct energy somewhere new. Last year we wrote a funding application,
and Regional Arts Victoria and the F Project, as well as fpc and Deakin, are
supporting this festival.

The Silver Ball Screening Festival isn’t just a
short-film festival. The films are going to be screened on Warrnambool’s CBD landscape
– down laneways, out shop fronts, and onto walls and installations.

And the
films will be made by locals; some of which will come out of workshops being
run by local film-makers in February and March. It’s a huge endeavor, but
Warrnambool has this amazing ability to rise to a challenge – that’s my
impression anyway!

We are currently doing a call out for people who are interested in making a documentary, narrative, animated or artistic film in free workshops run by professional film-makers. You can find the application form here.

I’m fairly new to Warrnambool. Although I’m
Australian I came here from England in 2011 for a job at Deakin. It was a huge
move for me because I didn’t know anybody here, and I had loved living in
England; but it was time to move on.

Whilst in Warrnambool I’ve found a lot of things
charming (and a few things a little odd). One thing that is simultaneously
charming and odd is the Fletcher Jones’ Ball.

At first I was mystified by this
feature of the landscape, and now I treasure it! It’s a great marker of
direction, but more importantly it’s unique, and it ties this town to places
abroad and events in the past! According to people in the know, FJ’s Ball was homage
to the perisphere and trylon that the man himself saw at the 1939 World Trade
Fair in New York.

When thinking about something that could be the
theme and title for the festival it was hard to look past FJ’s Ball. And
actually, at the World Trade Fair people could get on an escalator and see
images projected on the interior of the perisphere. How apt is that? If I could
arrange a trip through the silver ball on an escalator I would; perhaps someone
will take that as a filmic challenge in the workshops.

You can learn more about FJ's silver ball, and our Silver Ball Screening Project by watching this short video.

My hopes for this festival are pretty simple.

I
hope people make films, I hope people come and watch them, and I hope the
creative energy in this town continues to surge.

But I have a more ambitious hope as well.

Currently, FJ’s Ball isn’t being preserved properly. If our
little film festival can draw some more attention to this, and play a role in
saving it, that would be an impressive feat!